60 THE TAILOR-BIRD AND THE ORIOLE. 
dwelling is finished, and then drive away the 
owners, and take possession of it for them- 
selves. It often happens that a pair of poor 
little pinc-pincs build one nest after another, 
and every time are robbed of their home ; and 
sometimes they cannot find any place to rear 
their young. 
A traveller in Africa contrived to tame a 
pair of felt-making birds. He enticed them 
into his tent with crumbs and tit-bits, and 
they immediately spied out a heap of cotton 
and flax that lay upon the table, and that he 
was using to stuff birds with. It was much 
easier to steal his cotton than to pick the down 
from the branches of plants ; and they carried 
away, in their beaks, great parcels of it, lai-ger 
than themselves. 
The traveller followed them to the tree 
where they were going to build, and sat 
down and watched them. They had already 
laid the foundation of moss, and the branch 
was embedded in it. 
At first the nest looked only like a mass, 
rudely put together ; but the mother bird kept 
steadily working it into shape, while her part- 
ner flew backwards and forwards to fetch cot- 
